Knife That Sits In Your Pocket
by Allie773
Summary: !OneShot. What if Sam had remembered that "not clean" feeling he mentioned in 8x21 all along? How much different would he be because of it? Could be set around Season 2. !DarkSam !Pre-CuttingSam Not a death fic! Mentions of John.


**Hello Again!** It's been awhile since I've written anything, and I got the sudden urge to, so soon enough this came to be. Actually kinda dark, my apologies if that's not your thing. :p

I was looking for some borderline suicidal/suicidal Sam and there wasn't much to find, so I thought I might contribute.

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**Disclaimer: I do not in any way own Supernatural, The CW, the boys, or anything else that I've forgotten to mention. All I own are the typos. :)**

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It all started when he was little.

No, scratch that, it was before then.

Maybe.

Okay, so he doesn't know exactly when it started, but it's been following him around longer than his shadow has. It's not something tangible, it's just… _there_. Always has been, it seems. Harder to shake off than his shadow, too.

It wasn't a voice.

Okay, it _kinda_ was. But not the kind you'd think. Not some babbling thing that always rang in his ear, 24/7, trying to strike up a conversation with him. No, more like a… soft echo, when one person whispers the faint _Hello?_ into a dark, mysterious place with contents unknown, brave enough to search for something but not dumb enough to get into trouble in case that dark place held things unwanted.

Except it wasn't a voice. Not really. That soft echo was an emotional tidal wave. Not a rough one, but a gentle one that families with children under the age of 12 like to place their beach chairs and towels near so it rolls in on their feet, but doesn't ruin all their stuff.

It was a strong feeling. As if it belonged to the small but elite group of emotions that conquered humans; love and hate.

It came during times of vulnerability. Doubt. Self-deprecation. And it wasn't something he could just switch off either, like a light or a tap. No, when this… this _thing_ came rolling in, it was sturdier than a 2x4 being cut against the grain with a butter knife.

So it left him with the only real choice he had; wait it out. Let it pass. Hope it goes away. Try not to absorb what it feeds him, it's not like any of it's true.

Or maybe it is, he just doesn't know it yet. Confined by the menial amount of knowledge his adolescent brain can obtain.

And that pisses him off, more than it probably should. That's why if he's ever bored, without anything to do, you'll more often than not find him nose-deep in a book. Doesn't matter what kind of book, could be a mystery novel or even a biography on an old jazz player of the 40's that's high on the library shelf, has to dust it off before reading it because _seriously, who reads that stuff, Sammy? _That's what Dean tells him, but he pays it no mind. If any scrap of information can be used for future reference, he'll take it.

Especially if it'll help him figure out what this _thing_ is. It's mostly for facts that could help them on hunts, of course. That's what he tells himself, and he dutifully ignores his conscience rolling his eyes at him and muttering "…that's gotta be some hell of a case, to need to know the family tree of Charlie Parker by heart."

Apparently it's not something everyone has, or rather, something _anyone_ has other than him. He knows, he spent a week gathering up the courage and the words to ask Dean about it once when they were just settling into a motel in some Podunk town off Nowhere lane, Dean in his early years of High School.

Dad was on a hunt for a Shtriga in the next town over, leaving the boys on their own for the next few days. They were walking across the parking lot, headed for their room, and he had just accidentally splashed his right sneaker into a shallow, but not shallow enough, puddle on the asphalt.

His face twisted and turned into some sort of figuration, according to his brother a comical one, as he then continued to chuckle at him as they made their way in, his shoes making a God-awful _squish-squash_ sound every step he took. He was then ordered by the same crappy family member to chuck his shoes off, which he did, and then followed to set them over the vent in the corner of the room.

_Okay, forget the crappy family member part. _

What happened next was an awkward configuration of _Hey, Dean, you ever get this feeling…_ and _No, not like that, _some _Come on Dean, I'm being serious here!_ and one _No, not nausea… yes, I feel fine!_

It ended up with his brother giving him a slightly humored expression, though he was fighting to keep it off his face, but snickering in the end because he _somehow_ got the impression that Sam just tried to ask him about boners. Which he very much _wasn't,_ so much so that it was disappointing in a way that he couldn't even explain this to his older brother, the one he told everything to.

So he let it go, he had earned himself enough blackmail points to last him, well, maybe his whole life just then and he wasn't about to keep raising that to hit _eternally at your brother's mercy._

He never got a straight answer. Never got any answers at all, which is how he's ended up where he is right now; sprawled on the bathroom floor of their motel room, somewhere outside of Atlanta, GA. He's got his back pressed into the wall, wedged between the sink and the toilet, the door locked, his legs pointed out to form a V shape. Dean's out getting them some sandwiches from a shady looking off-brand version of Subway he caught a whiff of on the drive over here.

They're in between cases right now, just finished up a poltergeist a few counties over, headed to a possible werewolf up in Jacksonville, but it's still 2 weeks before another full moon so they've got some time to kill.

So he's sitting there, in a closed bathroom, in late spring, in Georgia, holding his butterfly knife. He's had it for awhile now, wasn't sure why he had it in his hands now, but _oh wait, yeah he did._

It was back again.

He had felt it crackling along the edge of his vision, tingling up his neck through that one joint he always managed to find a way to pull, especially if it was something little. The joint that when pulled, feels like its stem travels up from the base of your neck to the part of your brain just behind your ear, rooting in deep like a lightning bolt. Yeah, _that _one.

So it was back, and it had come while they were driving over here, leaving Sam fidgeting in the passenger and all of a sudden taking great interest in his cuticles while Dean eyed him momentarily but brushed it off to being stuck in the car for so long.

Not long after they had settled Dean had left, much to Sam's relief, which left him jerkily grabbing his knife and rushing to the bathroom.

He hadn't ever actually cut himself, though he had come close a few times. It wasn't that this thing made him turn moody and depressed, but more so that it gave him this sense of _not-quite-meeting-pretty-much-everyone's-expectations._ Like not being good enough, not being _pure_ enough.

He tried to kid himself by saying that it was since his old man wasn't up and kicking anymore to tell him those things, he had developed some sort of spirit like the Angel and The Devil ones that sat upon a person's shoulder in those typical Christmas movies. Not that he ever watched those.

Except that this one was a manifestation of his Dad, one that once again gave him those feelings of not being the perfect soldier to carry out all his orders, not like Dean could.

Most of the time he just dragged the edge or the tip of the blade slowly and carefully across his skin, the more sensitive the better. His wrists, the inside crook of his elbow, his ankles, backs of his knees, you name it. He's done it all over the years.

Yeah, that's right, years.

It's been since about the time before he left for Stanford, getting to become a habit of his that he just can't shake. But he didn't have any options, just to sit and let the tide roll in, but he couldn't have that. He needed to be able to have _choices._ So, he came up with this.

Every time the feeling arose, he'd wait until he was alone to grab the nearest blade and run off to a small bathroom or closet if he absolutely had to, and drag it across until the feeling's gone. It made his breath hitch the first half dozen or so times, the thrill of being on just this side of danger but being in full control to make sure it never went too far.

Most of the times when he had gotten fairly close to actually puncture skin it was because he either had the blade sharper than he remembered it to be, or it had simply been so long since he had done it that he needed to readjust how much pressure to apply.

Here he was, tracing little patterns and sigils into his tanned skin across his wrist, trying to get through it yet again. The heat seemed to be multiplying by the second, which was making him re-evaluate his decision to sit next to the toilet and lowering his appetite just as quickly.

He had stripped down to just his boxers and undershirt, leaving the rest crumpled in a pile on the tile floor. His whole body was developing a small outer covering of sweat, and whatever skin wasn't covered with fabric was grabbing onto the cheap tiles, as he didn't move all that much aside from his chest rising and falling and his left hand moving the blade.

_With just a little more pressure, I could end this all. Right now. _He thinks, as he drifts the blade up from the beginning of his wrist to the juncture in his elbow. _One deep, but calculated cut, and it could come undone._

He concentrates on that area for a little while, humming what may or may not be _Sweet Child O' Mine_ because _okay, it grows on you. _If only Dean could hear him now, he thinks as he breathes out a choppy, hard breath that may have passed off as the beginning of a chuckle if he actually used his vocal cords.

Yeah, if only Dean could hear him now. Hell, if only Dean could _see_ him now. But no, he's still got a good 15 minutes before he even starts to pack up, knowing Dean will most likely actually follow the speed limit for once, being in no rush, and flirt with anything he comes into contact with as he waits for the food.

Somehow, this one thing has eluded Dean ever since he began. He doesn't know if it's just stupid luck, or if he's in some higher powers graces enough to bless him with the lack of intrusion and no doubt, full-out fit Dean will throw when he finds out. Because it's not even a question if he will find out, but when, with Dean knowing him better than he knows himself sometimes. Either way, it's gotta be running pretty thin now, leaving him relishing in the time he has left until the inevitable.

So he sits there, and sits there, hearing the very faint _tick tock_ of the bedside clock in the bedroom beyond the thin bathroom door. He thinks about all the times he's felt this before, as he usually does, trying to think of what might trigger them, because they sometimes come even before he starts to doubt. Which in turn, makes him doubt more than if he would naturally.

Once, when Dean was little and Sam even littler, his brother read him a story from some Classics Illustrated Comics, specifically Knights of the Roundtable. He was so incredibly young that he really shouldn't remember this at all, knows Dean surely doesn't, but he does. Just barely. Because of this thing.

It made him feel unworthy, whereas most children who read that would have gotten a little pep in their step, maybe even decide that they were big enough to go on quests too. It hit him in a rush, the_ I'm not clean_ feeling that this gave him. _I couldn't do that. I'm not meant for that._

He remembers that feeling entirely, barely registers the story, and only knows it because he did a lot of research on it until he found out. Then it started to kick in. All of the rest came flooding back.

It's to-date the oldest memory of _this_ he has. And he doesn't know what any of it means, still.

He pushes the blade down a little harder.

Time slips away from him then, because the next thing he's aware of is the rumble of the Impala pulling into the parking lot. He flips the knife back the way he got it, picks up his clothes and pulls them back on in haste, and walks to open the door.

Dean's strolling in the room with four bags, two hanging on his arm and two in his grasp as his right hand is pulling the key out of the door.

He looks up at Sam and just stares for a second, and although it's just a second, it's too long for Sam. _He's figured it out. He knows. He's seeing right through me._ All go flashing through his mind, the end of his mouth curving up in what he hopes is a naturally seeming smile, and bats his lashes.

The cool metal of the knife feels like it's freezing right through his palm, and he didn't even know he could feel so much from his hand but now he feels _everything _from it. The sweat in the crevices of his fingers, the way he has his hand curled around the knife, the weight of it pulling his hand down farther than gravity naturally would if he had nothing in it. He feels like he's got a red cape wrapped around his hand and at any second Dean, the bull, is going to notice it and charge at him. In every way possible, and maybe then some.

But just as quickly as his universe stops, it starts back up again as Dean calls him a lazy excuse for a brother and that he could help him, ya know?

He doesn't look a gift horse in the mouth, and quickly crams the butterfly knife into his right back pocket while mumbling agreement and grabbing the two bags in Dean's hand.

They each grab their own food, Dean moving over to his bed and flopping down with the grace of a walrus. Even though spending an intimate half hour with the John, he grabs some subs anyways and chooses to sit down at the small round dining table for two by the wall.

"So, anything interesting happen while I was gone?"

Sam shakes his head in a negative, unrolling the paper from his sub and fidgets in his seat.

Though there are two layers in between them, he feels the knife poke his skin clearer and sharper than ever before.

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Welp, hoped you all enjoyed this little One Shot! **Make sure to leave a review if you wish to tell me anything**, I looove reviews. ;) Don't forget to favorite as well if you liked it. Bye for now!


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